Precision Energy Measurements with the MSU Cyclotron

Abstract

This paper describes the technique currently being used at the Michigan State University Cyclotron Laboratory for the precise determination of nuclear excitation energies and nuclear reaction Q-values. In this work we are using a recently described1 calibration procedure for nuclear emulsions in an Enge split-pole magnetic spectrograph to obtain typical uncertainties of 0.1–1. keV in measurements of particle energies in the 20–40 MeV range. The choice of energy standards, a description of our calibration procedure, and some recent results are presented in the following sections.